Page 75 of For Real

Toby giggled—it was a giggle, there was no other way of describing it—and I smiled at him, helplessly pleased to have inspired it and how natural, how easy, it felt to be with him now I wasn’t constantly on my guard against any show of affection. Even if part of me still balked and called it foolishness.

“What’s it for, then?” he asked.

“It’s just a type of cock ring, Toby.”

He jangled the thing. “Cock rings, you mean.”

“They’re called ‘The Gates of Hell.’”

Suddenly he grinned at me, just like he had at Pervocracy: too big, too bright, too goofy, the tip of one incisor peeking out of the edges of his smile. “You’d look gorgeous in it. Can I put it on you?”

“What, now?”

“Easy, tiger. I mean, like…at some point.”

My cock hardened self-defeatingly, as if in masochistic expectation of future restriction. “You know you can.”

“Yeah, I know. I just like hearing you say it.” He traced the circumference of the widest ring with a finger. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes, but I don’t mind. If you like it.”

He tilted his head curiously. “Could you come with this on?”

“Probably. If you”—my careful tone wavered a little—“forced me.”

“I’d like that. I’d really like that. God.” He was a little flushed as he put the Gates of Hell back down, which filled me with the most terrible desire to kiss him, to please him, to hurt for him.

And to tell him all these things.

To admit that I’d always been Zanzibar.

“Now this”—he picked up something else—“this is definitely kitchenware. It looks like it’s one of the bits from under the sink.”

“It’s an anal hook.”9

“Jesus…does that…go where I think it does?”

“No, Toby, it goes—” I tried to think of some sarcastic alternative, but then I realised how pointlessly petulant it would sound. “Yes. Yes, it does.”

He ran a hand gently over the curving steel. “You’re into some seriously hardcore stuff.”

“I wouldn’t say into. More sort of own.”

“How am I supposed to live up to this?”

I reached out, pulled the damn thing off him, and cast it away. “You’re not.”

“Wow.” He frowned, his face pulling into a sequence of tight, hurt lines.

“That wasn’t supposed to sound negative. The thing is, it’s not what you do that matters, it’s”—I paused a moment, not quite sure what I was saying—“what it means.”10

Oh. Oh God.

In the rush to console him for my carelessness, I’d stumbled over a piece of truth that was fundamental to me, held so deep in my heart I’d forgotten it was there. On instinct alone, I’d tried to give it to Toby, and instead given it back to myself.

It’s not what you do, it’s what it means.

For a moment, I was dizzy with rediscovery. Then there was only pain. A flood of interchangeable memories accumulated over three years’ worth of hopeless, pointless hookups. Necessary at the time, but so very much not what I had ever wanted and nothing close to what I needed. And how hollow it seemed now that I was with Toby. A wretched past to bring to this beautiful boy.

---